The Non-fungible token marketplace Nifty Gateway hosted an auction that saw one NFT artwork sell for about $777,777 after a last-second bid doubled the price. On December 14, Nifty tweeted that this bid had been entered with just one second left to go in the auction. Notably, the artwork was the last to be sold from “The Complete MF Collection” which was auctioned on that day.
This token featured each of the collection’s 20 individual digital artworks in a single NFT. All of the artworks that participated in the auction were inspired by nature, technology, and star wars. They were created by pseudonymous artist “Beeple.”
Tim Kang and “Metakovan”, NFT investors, found themselves in a fierce bidding war for the piece. They steadily pushed the price up from $200,000 to $380,000 before Kang managed to enter the last-second blowout bid.
Cumulatively, the 20 artworks were auctioned for over $3.5 million which prompted the artist to tweet a video of his friends dousing him in champagne in celebration.
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/3XHGfFcYmj
— beeple (@beeple) December 14, 2021
On his part, the winning bidder praised Beeple for the collection. He focused on the artist’s “precise attention to detail across the physical and digital spectrum” stating:
“His consistent work ethic, creative understanding & divine timing landmarked history for art & crypto and I’m just blessed to participate. My winning bid was not for him and myself only [—] I hope we were able to take [a] stand for the future of creativity, open collaboration, and self-sovereignty through digital signature.”
The auction surpassed the previous record set for the most-valuable artwork auctioned on Nifty Gateway by 1,300%. At the time, Trevor Jones’ NFT “Picasso’s Bull” that was sold to Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile of the Museum of Crypto Art went for $55,555.55 in August.
NFTs are also starting to come from the digital domain constraints and into the mainstream. In that context, an interactive NFT was created by a former pro-baseball player who turned into a token artist, Micah Johnson. The artwork was exhibited on an electronic billboard in Los Angeles this December.
